"It is our hope that enough people recognize the long-term value of this service to subscribe and stay subscribed," Stephens wrote. He believes that the service will be especially well received in the wake of the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

The news of the launch generated a on Hacker News, an online forum popular with entrepreneurs and others who follow the technology startup scene.

"If it is true that they help you monitor your identity and credit score and on top of that help you strategize ways to better position yourself not only credit wise but also mortgage wise, I could see the benefit in remaining subscribed," a user named siculars wrote.

Another user, Brushfire, was dubious: " I went through the process to sign-up, since they are offering 90 days free, and was presented with multiple Apache/Tomcat errors halfway through the process. That doesn't exactly inspire confidence -- I stopped right away. Giving my social security number to a website that is having server failure? Bad idea."

Besides his operating the Web start-up, Stephens writes under the pen name Robert X. Cringely and formerly wrote a column for IDG's InfoWorld, a sister publication of the Industry Standard. He is the author of the book Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date.